Customer Satisfaction of Recommender System: Examining Accuracy and Diversity in Several Types of Recommendation Approaches

• Main Authors: Jae-Kyeong Kim, Il-Young Choi, Qinglong Li
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-05-01
• Series: Sustainability
• Subjects: accuracy; diversity; customer satisfaction; e-commerce personalized service; recommender system
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/11/6165

Information technology and the popularity of mobile devices allow for various types of customer data, such as purchase history and behavior patterns, to be collected. As customer data accumulate, the demand for recommender systems that provide customized services to customers is growing. Global e-commerce companies offer recommender systems to gain a sustainable competitive advantage. Research on recommender systems has consistently suggested that customer satisfaction will be highest when the recommendation algorithm is accurate and recommends a diversity of items. However, few studies have investigated the impact of accuracy and diversity on customer satisfaction. In this research, we seek to identify the factors determining customer satisfaction when using the recommender system. To this end, we develop several recommender systems and measure their ability to deliver accurate and diverse recommendations and their ability to generate customer satisfaction with diverse data sets. The results show that accuracy and diversity positively affect customer satisfaction when applying a deep learning-based recommender system. By contrast, only accuracy positively affects customer satisfaction when applying traditional recommender systems. These results imply that developers or managers of recommender systems need to identify factors that further improve customer satisfaction with the recommender system and promote the sustainable development of e-commerce.